The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life

Listen to The Top if you want to hear from the worlds TOP entrepreneurs on how much they sold last month, how they are selling it, and what they are selling - 7 days a week in 20 minute interviews!
The Top is FOR YOU IF you are:
A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4)
STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7)
An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1)
The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14).
Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.
Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at NathanLatka.com/TheTop

Boris Shakhnovich, president of PDF Filler. He manages the daily operation and marketing campaigns but he is also responsible for the mission and vision of the company. Prior to his work at PDF Filler, Boris earned a PhD in Bioinformatics and he’s a Bioinformatics Professor at Boston University. He later moved to Harvard University to work with Systems Biology.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Guerilla Marketing

What CEO do you follow? –Marc Benioff

Favorite online tool? — Google Analytics

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That doing is more important than knowing”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Boris to the show

02:30 – Boris is the president and co-founder

02:47 – PDF Filler is a document management platform

02:51 – It allows people to do end-to-end document generation

03:40 – PDF Filler is a SaaS business model and they charge per month

03:46 – 3 tiers: professional, non-professional, and business

03:50 – Business is the most expensive at $15 a month

03:58 – Average customer pays per month

04:10 – In 2008, the founder started the business and ran it by himself until the end of 2011

04:25 – Boris joined the company 5 years ago and applied marketing technology to it

04:39 – PDF Filler has now close to 200,000 customers

04:58 – Monthly RPU

05:16 – PDF Filler was needed when it launched so it grew organically

05:30 – Gross customer churn per month is low

06:28 – PDF Filler works with the government institutions

06:58 – PDF Filler’s digital marketing platform

07:08 - PDF Filler runs 60 million keywords on top of SEO and other SEM platforms

07:19 – Brings 4 million website views monthly

07:30 – Internal CRM with A/B Testing

08:22 – “We have a marketing technology that allows us to find sites that would be interested in collaborating with us and we have that as a partnership program”

09:00 – It is part-human and part-code

09:36 – Semantic search technology

10:06 – They write every code in house

10:50 – They have one of the largest SEM platforms and account in Google

11:44 – PDF Filler makes money on the first payment of their customers

12:20 – There are 160 team members divided across Boston

12:52 – PDF Filler is completely bootstrapped

13:14 – First year revenue was about $20,000

13:36 – 2015 total revenue is double digit millions

13:55 – Future plans with the business:

14:17 – Doing a lot of partnerships with private and government companies

14:43 – PDF Filler is a zero salespeople company

15:45 – Do you have an appetite for acquisition? Have you done it before?

15:50 – Absolutely, but we haven’t done it before and are in the process of doing that now

16:05 – “Looking for companies that are complimentary to us and we can add value”

16:40 – “We would buy a competitor of a part of the business, not the whole business”

17:28 – They are currently looking into mail merge space, CRM space, and signature space

17:56 – Connect with Boris through his LinkedIn and website

20:28 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

If you can, strive to have a partnership with BOTH private and government agencies.

AGREATmarketing technology will createTONSof organic website visits.

DOING is extremely more important than knowing.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Chris Devor, founder of DocHub and other extensions. DocHub allows you to view, edit, and sign PDFs online for free to streamline the exchange of documents. Listen as Chris shares how DocHub is different from their competitors and why he won’t easily jump into offers for a share of his company.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — New Relic

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I would have taken Computer Science and it would probably make my life easier”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show

02:16 – Chris started DocHub 3 years ago

02:57 – DocHub integrates with different providers

03:17 – DocHub can be opened directly from Gmail

03:30 – The signature looks real

03:48 – Number of users is 15.4 million and 52.2 documents

04:18 – What does 15 million users mean?

04:29 – For every one document opened up equates to one user

05:08 – The monthly recurring expense led Chris to having a paywall

06:57 – Chris runs several of the operations

07:16 – Number of paying users in October is around 5,000

08:00 – MRR in October is about $95,000

09:30 – Chris owns 100% of DocHub

09:43 – Team size

11:00 – In the last 30 days, DocHub had 1600 new subscriptions and 650 new cancellations

Randall Nachman of DocuFirst, who has over 15 years of experience in mortgage lending and software development with a strong focus on business processes, work-flow, operation, sales and marketing. He founded a mortgage brokerage company in 2003 which grew from 2 loan officers to 135 loan officers and ranked 2nd in the region for total loan closings and volume. He then founded ATLOS, a document management in 2008 which is used by lenders and borrowers.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Trump: The Art of the Deal

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Trello

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Pay attention in class”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:34 – Nathan introduces to the show

02:31 – DocuFirst focuses on 3 core functions within software

03:12 – DocuFirst also focuses on document storage and management

03:39 – The files are stored securely that they can access anytime

03:44 – ATLOS and DocuFirst was launched in 2015

04:13 – First year for DocuFirst was close to $100,000

04:21 – DocuFirst’s is a SaaS model and is subscription-based

04:58 – Average monthly RPU is $150

05:35 – ATLOS is for mortgage space but DocuFirst handles any type of forms

06:40 – DocuFirst is currently serving 80 unique companies

06:54 – Each company has an average of 6-7 users

07:06 – ATLOS has 4 companies they’re serving

07:18 – ATLOS markets directly to the mortgage lending space

07:38 – DocuFirst’s monthly revenue is $12,000

08:07 – Randall started in the document space because he wanted to automate his own business

08:43 – Why create a new brand if they are both running on the same software?

Rob Nelson, founder and CEO of Grow – a business intelligence platform. Nathan came across Rob when he was doing research in the intelligence space and Grow provided a lot of good feedback. Rob is a listener of The Top and happily accepted Nathan’s invitation to be a guest on The Top.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The ONE Thing

What CEO do you follow? –Aaron Skonnard

Favorite online tool? — Calendly

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t ever quit”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:25 – Nathan introduces Rob to the show

02:00 – Grow is a powerful business intelligence platform and made specifically for SMBs

02:13 – Rob founded Grow in 2014

02:25 – Rob had a software company which was bootstrapped

02:34 – Rob struggled pulling up data from different platforms

03:29 – Rob sold the company and had a great exit

04:10 – Grow is a SaaS model and has subscription based pricing

04:20 – Grow doesn’t charge based on the number of users

05:10 – Grow charges based on the number of metrics used

05:20 – Grow’s RPU is $600 a month

05:30 – Users pay monthly but there’s a 12-month commitment

06:06 – “If we can’t get them hooked with the product in the first 3 days, they can walk away”

06:18 – 75% of the people continue after the 30-day trial period

07:05 – Rob doesn’t know their exact churn

07:29 – Grow’s usage stats

07:44 – Half of their customers log-in everyday

07:50 – 92% of the customers are logging in at least twice a month

08:00 – Grow is currently serving 600 customers

08:08 – Rob started with the concept in January 2014

08:30 – Rob hired a technical co-founder and gave him 20% of the business

09:00 – Rob and his team are based in Utah

09:45 – Team size is 70

09:58 – Grow raised a series A round and seed round

10:12 – Total amount raised was $13 million

10:14 – Total of $9 million was raised in series A

10:25 – Both are priced equity round

10:44 – Rob is a huge fan of bootstrapping during his first venture

11:28 – Rob decided to raise for Grow because bootstrapping just wouldn’t work

11:50 – Total 2014 revenue is about $80

12:20 – 2015 revenue is $150,000

13:00 – Goal for 2016 revenue

13:33 – Rob closed the series A in July

14:03 – Fully-weighted CAC is about $3,500

15:00 – Why do you think Dasher didn’t work out?

15:20 – “It’s hard to build a company on $20 or $30 a month”

16:35 – Connect with Rob through his website

18:05 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

USEyour experience toIMPROVEyour business.

Explore other options—if bootstrapped worked first, that doesn’t mean it will work again.

Don’t EVER quit.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Mike Doyle, CEO of Rent Like A Champion, a vacation rental platform for sporting events. He has hosted 50 thousand travelers and made over $12 million in sales. Mike is a Shark Tank survivor who received an investment from Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca and both Mark and Chris are still very involved in the business.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Hard Thing About Hard Things

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Trello

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not now

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Start earlier and take advantages of those resources”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:30 – Nathan introduces Mike to the show

02:00 – Mike took a total of $200,000 from Mike and Chris for 10% of the company’s equity

02:10 – Shark Tank was their first round of funding

02:27 – Mike wanted to get the deal and the exposure

02:38 – Rent Like A Champion’s valuation during Shark Tank

02:52 – Rent Like A Champion is currently in the market for raising

02:59 – Rent Like A Champion’s episode was filmed in June 2013

03:18 – In Rent Like A Champion’s platform, the sellers are the homeowners who own properties around stadiums

03:29 – Buyers are the sports fans who are travelling to watch the games

03:33 – Rent Like A Champion is focused on non-urban destinations

03:33 – The focus is smaller towns where there are not enough hotels for fans to stay

03:46 – Rent Like A Champion was founded in 2012

04:07 – Since 2012, Rent Like A Champion has hosted under 60,000 fans

04:18 – Total booked destinations: 7500 different places to rent

04:24 – An average of 8 fans per rental

04:28 – Rent Like A Champion’s market is families and groups

04:46 – Rent Like A Champion has over 3000 homes

04:51 – Rent Like A Champion has properties in over 100 towns in the USA

04:56 – About 25 towns are considered their core market

05:16 – 2012 total bookings equated to $630,000 and Rent Like A Champion kept 22%

05:29 – Rent Like A Champion is about to reach $4.5 million this year

05:58 – In 2015, Rent Like A Champion made under $3.3 million and kept $720,000

06:15 – Rent Like A Champion is getting a fee both from the seller and buyer

06:25 – 15% from the seller and 9% from the buyer

06:47 – Rent Like A Champion is seasonal

06:54 – Most of the bookings come from college football

07:05 – Rent Like A Champion is now partnering with 6 PGA tournament events

07:15 – Rent Like A Champion is also partnering with NASCAR races

07:55 – Most bookings come 68 weeks in advance

08:23 – In September, total of 750 groups booked

08:39 – Gross sales for September is about $1.35 million

09:05 – Average order value:

09:08 – $1600-2000 for a 2-night rental

09:36 – Team size is 5 full-timers and 5 part-timers

09:57 – Total transaction volume since 2012 is a little over $12 million

10:13 – How do you beat Airbnb?

10:17 – Rent Like A Champion considers non-hotel destinations

10:52 – “On the demand side, we’re able to be so targeted with our advertising towards sports fans”

11:13 – If Sacca didn’t miss out on the Airbnb deal, do you think you are going to be as aggressive as you are on Shark Tank?

11:28 – The night before Mike is going to film the episode, they still didn’t think that Sacca was going to be one of the sharks

12:00 – Did we accurately see everything that went down on Shark Tank?

12:05 – “It’s super condensed on what you see on TV”

13:03 – Schedule suddenly changes

13:14 – Average reorder rate is 50%

13:53 – Buyers book once a year

15:10 – How do you expand market shares after the sporting events?

15:14 – There’s a ton of green space around college football

15:20 – Graduation is already big for Rent Like A Champion but they’re still pushing it more

15:30 - Rent Like A Champion is starting to working with wedding planners for reunion weekends

16:08 – Rent Like A Champion is doing instant booking where list houses can put the availability of their houses depending on a scheduled game

16:53 – The pricing depends on the homeowners

17:08 – Rent Like A Champion can give homeowners guidelines in pricing

17:20 – Depending on the game, the amount of buyers vary

18:00 – What is it like working with Chris Sacca?

18:30 – “Chris and Mark have been incredibly involved and been receiving weekly updates”

18:45 – Chris and Mark are very responsive and prompt in replies

19:00 – Mike threw a big marketing event and Chris and Mark came to talk about an update segment in Shark Tank

19:39 – Connect with Mike through his business’ website, Twitter and Facebook

21:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Your business will being toDEFINEitself as you keep moving forward.

EXPANDyour niche. Don’t stay seasonal—continue to think bigger.

Startas EARLY as you canand take advantage of those resources.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Adam Robinson, CEO and co-founder of Hireology where’s he’s on a mission to help business owners make better hiring decisions using data and processes. He’s known in the recruiting industry, an expert speaker, and author with over 20 years of experience in the field of hiring and selection management.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Crossing the Chasm

What CEO do you follow? –Phil Knight

Favorite online tool? — Evernote

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Take more risks”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Adam to the show

02:03 – Hireology is a talent technology platform built specifically for owner/operators

02:14 – Hireology helps the owner with the technology they need in their hiring and employment process

02:30 – Hireology has a monthly subscription plan

02:36 – Hireology is a SaaS business model

02:46 – Hireology is different from Toptal and Upwork

03:03 – Hireology was founded mid 2010 and the product was launched in January 2012

03:13 – Adam had a recruitment and outsource business before Hireology

03:28 – Adam learned from this business that their clients had terrible interviewing skills

03:32 – Adam created an interviewing system and clients started asking to buy it

03:44 – Adam sold the business

04:13 – Hireology first customers were from Adam’s personal and professional network

04:40 – Hireology is currently working with under 4000 individually owned businesses in USA

04:50 – Around 100 brands

06:20 – How Adam sees Hireology’s future

07:15 – Adam had a client who was responsible for 40% of their revenue for 3 years

07:35 – Hireology ended up doing 4000 hires for the company

08:00 – Average RPU per month is $300 per location

08:14 – Kickers Hireology is using to increase RPU

08:18 – Based on employee count per location

08:39 – Hireology doesn’t increase the price of modules but increases its numbers

08:50 – Most of Hireology’s system is proprietary technology

09:15 – Hireology has 7 close partners that they white-label and sell through their platform

09:30 – Average MRR is $1.2 million

09:47 – Gross monthly customer churn

10:35 – Hireology is an all-inside sales operation for up-selling

11:05 – Team size is about 100

11:11 – Based in Chicago

11:27 – CAC

11:40 – Between $7-10 depending on the client’s industry

12:22 – Lifetime value

12:45 – Adam wants a business whose name is on a sign and whose personal balance sheets are invested in the business

13:15 – “There are 7 million employers in the USA that nobody is talking to and that’s the market we want to be in”

13:27 – Find Adam in Twitter, LinkedIn and his website. Shoot him an email at arobinson@hireology.com

16:00 – Hireology was bootstrapped for the first 2 years and did an institutional raise in 2014

16:12 – Raised $26 million in 2 round from 2014-16

16:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Find your target market and tap into that market.

Don’t rely on a client to stay with you forever—the sooner you accept that it’s part of the business, the better.

You need to TAKE more risks!

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Dan Golden, a veteran digital marketing executive and speaker who still spends time diving into analytics and making strategic recommendations for his clients. He has spent a lot of time on the client side with large agencies. Dan co-founded the digital agency “Be Found Online (BFO)” and has led the BFO team from his roots as a paid search agency to a full service performance digital marketing agency. Listen as Dan talks about how he turned his side project, BFO, to a now, successful agency, making a 6-figure revenue.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –The Great Game of Business

What CEO do you follow? –N/A

Favorite online tool? — Nudge

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Enjoy the journey”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:28 – Nathan introduces Dan to the show

02:30 – Be Found Online is a digital marketing agency

02:36 – BFO’s focus is to drive traffic and help their clients make money through that traffic

02:45 – BFO’s processes have evolved over time

03:15 – BFO was a side project for Dan and was called Be Found Local

03:26 – Dan and his co-founder merged their businesses and started in January 2009

03:40 – First year revenue for BFO was $200,000

03:51 – 2015 revenue: $7 million

04:15 – Dan shifted their goal from profitability to finding the right clients that fit BFO

04:50 – Dan aims for 12% net revenue

05:35 – Team size:

05:37 – 50 full-timers in the USA

05:43 – Total of 70 employees

06:02 – The BFO army has grown considerably

06:40 – BFO spends $50,000 a month on their software

07:10 – “A lot of technology we do is client-specific”

07:45 – “Many of the largest SaaS companies came from an agency model because an agency sees all the client-specific tools being used in the agency” – Nathan

08:43 – “I don’t want to build something that is slightly a better version of something out there” – Dan

09:50 – BFO has 60-80 active clients

10:00 – BFO has served over 100 clients since they started

10:14 – BFO has a big project yearly called “Perfect Client”

10:20 – BFO is doing research and client analysis for every client they’ve worked on to figure out where they can do their best work, which client is the best to work with, and where to add value

10:29 – BFO has turned down a lot of clients

10:45 – “I don’t want to double our client base, I want to find the right types of clients.”

11:02 – BFO wants to focus on enterprise clients

11:10 – Average that the customer is paying BFO

11:15 - $10,000 – $15,000 a month in fees

11:50 – How do you calculate lifetime value?

12:13 – Clients stay with BFO for a minimum of 12 months

12:48 – BFO is making a minimum of $600,000 a month

13:11 – Get in touch with Dan through Twitter, LinkedIn and BFO blog

15:50 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

GREAT things can turn out unexpectedly.

Business goals can change from time to time—be OPEN and FLEXIBLE for these changes.

Make sure to ENJOY the journey.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Ali Salman who heads Rapid Boost Marketing where they exclusively work with professional service providers. Rapid Boost has grown to over $2 million in annual sales over the last 2 years with a goal of $25 million by 2020. They have generated over 120,000 ideal client inquiries for service firms and practices in the last 12 months.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? –Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing

What CEO do you follow? –Elon Musk and Nathan Latka

Favorite online tool? — Ninja Outreach

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Sometimes more than that

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Get out of school faster”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:38 – Nathan introduces the show

02:09 – Rapid Boost Marketing is an agency

02:17 – Average contract size is anywhere between from $1500 to $6000 and majority of the contracts are from $2000 - $3000

02:28 – Rapid Boost Marketing has a big lead generation

02:53 – The revenue for 2015 is $800,000 and end of 2016 is more than $2 million

03:10 – Average monthly retainer is $2000 - $3000 and the average contract is from 18-24 months

03:30 – Average RPU

03:53 – Currently, Rapid Boost Marketing is working with 72 customers

04:45 – Rapid Boost Marketing can help a lawyer increase his revenue but it will also depend on the area and how salable the lawyer is

06:09 – Rapid Boost Marketing has 4 packages and it includes the paid media

06:15 – 30% of the packages goes to paid media

06:36 – They are focused on content and search engine optimization

06:50 – Team size

07:13 – Monthly headcount expenses equate to about 50% of their revenue

07:36 – Revenue in September 2016 is $857,000

08:22 – January, February, and March are their down months

08:29 – Average revenue for 3 months is $80,000 - $90,000

09:05 – Rapid Boost Marketing’s clients are described

10:17 – How Ali priced his own salary

10:50 – Connect with Ali through his Twitter and LinkedIn

13:16 – Ali founded the company in 2012

13:33 – First year revenue in 2013 is a little over $130,000

13:46 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Start AS EARLY as possiblein business.

Know your niche client and market WELL so you can grow quickly.

Your people--both your employees and your clients--contribute to your company’s success, without them, there is no success.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Dr. Dan Margolin, a practicing Podiatrist with over 27 years of experience and a practice that ranks from the top 3% in the country. Dan’s second and current practice is widely successful compared to his first. Listen as Dan talks about podiatry and his new business which he co-founded, Effective Management.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The 10x Rule

What CEO do you follow? –Tony Hsieh

Favorite online tool? — Testing Academy

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew to look for mentors a little bit more”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Dan to the show

02:15 – A podiatrist deals with health issues concerning the feet including sprains

02:32 – Dan generates revenue from his patients and sometimes, from insurance companies

02:39 – Dan’s ultimate goal is for the patients to be well

02:51 – In the long-term, Effective Management will be the bigger stream of revenue

Ron Miller, CEO of StartEngine,who was in Episode 40 of The Top and Chad Newell, CEO and founder of Snapwire. Listen as Ron and Chad explain how the new rule of SEC in equity crowdfunding helped their companies.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Ron: The E-Myth

What CEO do you follow? – Chad: Sean Malarkey

Favorite online tool? — Ron: Internal Email / Chad: Google Sheet

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Ron: No

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “It’s all about confidence.” – Ron Miller

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Ron and Chad to the show

02:30 – StartEngine is the nation’s leading platform that allows entrepreneurs to directly connect with potential investors to raise capital

02:45 – The new law opened up the possibility for everyone to become an investor

03:11 – It allows companies to advertise broadly

03:24 – StartEngine was launched in June 2015

03:30 – Total amount invested is $20 million

03:42 – 60,000 unique users have joined their community

04:00 – StartEngine charged 5% of the total capital from the proceeds raised

04:20 – Entrepreneur can raise up to $50 million a year in the online public offering and StartEngine charges $50 per investor

05:10 – “We are currently focusing on the US market and there’s no SaaS in there”

05:30 – What made Chad decide to use StartEngine

06:40 – Why StartEngine is ground-breaking

07:00 – The congress’ limitation on investing in a company

07:31 – “Real wealth is made by being an early investor”

07:54 – The new law is a radical shift

08:51 – Nathan believes that the best investors are customers

09:10 – Snapwire has 300,000 photographers in the platform

09:22 – Buyer ratio is much smaller than the photographers

09:45 – Snapwire has pay-as-you-go and a SaaS model

10:08 – Snapwire’s revenue is 50% from pay-as-you-go and 50% from SaaS

10:20 – 9,000 images have been bought in Snapwire since their launch

10:30 – Snapwire was founded in 2014

10:34 – Snapwire has raised $2.8 million

11:15 – Snapwire raising in StartEngine opened up a lot of opportunities

11:45 – Can you use StartEngine after a price round?

11:52 – The main advantage is that companies can set their terms

12:03 – Some companies have to essentially create a second priced or non-priced round

12:58 – The good thing about equity crowdfunding is you have to disclose everything

Timo Rein, CEO and co-founder of Pipedrive, a provider of sales CRM software that gives sales teams control over their selling processes. After spending $15,000 on a CRM for his own business that ended up being a total waste of money, Timo brought together a few engineering friends to create a better CRM solution for his own needs. This was the genesis of Pipe Tribe, which now has over 30,000 small business users worldwide and has reached $13.4 million in VC funding.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Turning Pro

What CEO do you follow? – Stephen Curry and Gregg Popovich

Favorite online tool? — Slack and Viber

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— “No, still trying.”

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Take action. It is important to work hard first. Discover who I am and know where my energy flows.”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:47 – Nathan introduces Timo to the show

02:31 – It was in 2002 when Timo spent $15,000 on a business

02:41 – It turned out that the business wouldn’t have much return

02:56 – Pipe Tribe helps small businesses around the world control their complex processes

03:23 – Pipe Tribe was founded in June 2010 and the product came out March 2011

03:30 – Current team size

03:48 – They have an office in Estonia and Manhattan

04:28 – Timo is based in California

04:50 – In 2010, revenue is zero

05:30 – 2015: total revenue

06:16 – Current ARR

06:30 – They are doing about a million dollars per month

06:48 – They have 30,000 paying customers

07:00 – Pipe Tribe’s pricing

07:07 – They have 3 plans at the moment

07:25 – Average customers’ pay per month

08:21 – They are doing cohort tracking

08:30 – Monthly customer churn

08:37 – Churn tends to be quite high

09:32 – The churn depends on the tool and business size

10:45 – CAC will depend on the company’s growth

12:00 – 25% of new sign-ups are paying annually

12:28 – How do you drive the company?

12:45 – Timo and his co-founders built the company from the ground up

13:22 – They have an internal goal

13:33 – They raised $9 million from Series A

13:53 – Some of the money they raised was from seed investors

14:13 – Timo won’t sell his business for $90 million or even $150 million

14:49 – Timo sees the company as a work undone

15:11 – “When you build a startup, it seems like you’re building an airplane while you are on air”

16:22 – They have a revenue goal and customer goal

16:45 – Connect with Timo through his LinkedIn

18:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

The world around us changes—the economy goes up and down.

When you build a startup, it seems like you’re building an airplane while you are on air.

Take action. It is important to work hard first. Discover who you are and know where your energy flows.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Michael Cheng, co-founder of Sniply, an innovative new marketing tool that helps companies caption the value of content sharing in social media. Sniply links has generated over 150 million clicks and is used by notable brands such as IBM, Salesforce and Greenpeace.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs Biography

What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

Favorite online tool? — Google Translate

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Don’t rush it”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:39 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show

02:09 – Sniply is a content marketing platform

02:11 – It allows people to generate ROI from the links they share

02:30 – It is a SaaS subscription model

02:32 – Premium has a customized ability on call to action and other features

Nathan interviews Tanner Larsson, co-founder of 80/20 Media, CEO of e-commerce brand incubator BuildGrowsSale.com. He’s also the founder and facilitator of an exclusive e-commerce syndicate called Black Label – composed of the best and brightest marketers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs in the e-commerce space. He recently published his first book called Ecommerce Evolved which offers readers a box view of how successful e-commerce brands build, grow, and scale.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Rocket Fuel

What CEO do you follow? – Ed O’Keefe

Favorite online tool? —FastStone Capture

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not even close

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “You don’t have to fund everything out of your own pocket, there are other options available”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:27 – Nathan introduces Tanner to the show

02:15 – Tanner’s ecommerce world started in 2001

02:20 – Started in eBay and Tanner became a powerseller

02:31 – Tanner was doing $ 50,000 - $ 100,000 a month in eBay

03:00 – “There’s no reason not to sell a physical product”

03:25 – Tanner and his team have a number of e-commerce brands

03:36 – 2 main brands have done $6.5 million in a year

03:48 – They had a problem in production

04:06 – “We’ve had different bottlenecks that prevented us from growing at the rate we could have grown”

04:30 – The flashlight market

04:38 – Tanner doesn’t want to sell what everybody is selling

04:47 – The gap they saw is between the lower price entry level flashlight and high-end flashlight

Brandon Foo, co-founder and CEO of Polymail (YC S16) – an email platform making businesses and companies more productive. Previously, he co-founded CTRL LA Collective, a co-working space in LA. He graduated from UCLA where he co-founded Bruin Entrepreneurs which is now the biggest entrepreneurship organization at UCLA. Listens as Brandon shares how he built Polymail and why entrepreneurs prefer it over Gmail.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – N/A

What CEO do you follow? – Aaron Levie

Favorite online tool? — Asana

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— 7-8

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Spend more time with side projects and less on school work”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:35 – Nathan introduces Brandon to the show

02:08 – Polymail is a super-powerful email platform designed for business users

02:18 – With just 1 app, you can do a lot with your email

02:37 – It is a complete stand-alone email client

03:15 – How are you convincing people to make the switch?

03:20 – Polymail supports multiple accounts

03:52 – People are looking for a complete product experience and Polymail has that

04:31 – A lot of features of Polymail are not in the regular Gmail

04:54 – Polymail started in 2015

05:02 – Launched a Mac prototype in December 2015

05:12 – There’s a tremendous traction

05:38 – Brandon built a small community of people who were invited to try the app

05:48 – They have a Slack group so Brandon can get feedback on a daily basis

06:10 – When they officially launched Polymail, these people downloaded the app and left reviews

07:12 – Polymail is a free app at the moment

07:20 – Polymail pro is in the works but you can sign-up for it now

07:41 – Polymail pro has much more advanced features

08:00 – Over 20,000 daily active users of Polymail

08:12 – 150,000 total downloads and people who signed up

08:27 – Every time Polymail will release a new feature, they will email the whole list of people who signed up to get them engaged in using Polymail

08:52 – Brandon had raised around a million dollars

09:12 – Brandon used a convertible equity

09:24 – Team size of 5

09:48 – The goal for Polymail is to build the platform for external communication on top of email

10:08 – “Email is a critical product for business people so we saw the opportunity there”

11:23 – Polymail is not for a short-term outcome

12:00 – They just wrapped up their seed round

12:30 – They wrapped it up in September 2016

12:48 – Target people

12:56 – A lot of the users are solo entrepreneurs

13:45 – There’s no significant changes with Gmail for the past 10 years

14:09 – Maybe because they make money from ad revenue and let Gmail be a generic email platform

14:40 – Find Brandon on Twiter

16:44 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

An update on a product can make non-active users use the product again.

Consistent feedback from a group of customers can significantly improve the product.

Spend more time with side projects and less on school work.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Rey Grainger, founder and CEO of Mavenlink, where he’s leading a mission to re-invent the way businesses do work. Ray brings over 25 years of experience in software and technology consulting to Mavenlink. He also invests in several technology companies through Accenture technology ventures including enterprise knowledge manager vendor InQuira.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great

What CEO do you follow? – Marc Benioff

Favorite online tool? — Evernote

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— I don’t

If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “That I would actually end up achieving what I have setup to do”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:24 – Nathan introduces Ray to the show

02:28 – Ray likes corporate world more

03:00 – How Accenture invested in AI Technology

03:20 – Ray left Accenture in 2005 when InQuira started to get into the market

03:48 – Ray already had an idea for Mavenlink

04:45 – Mavenlink is SaaS business management solution

05:09 – Mavenlink is a subscription based business model

05:50 – First year revenue is zero

06:08 – Product development was in February 2009

06:25 – Began monetizing at the beginning of 2010

06:40 – Mavenlink was bootstrapped

07:05 – Before starting Mavenlink, Ray sold some of his stocks of Accenture

07:40 – Before they were able to monetize, Ray and his team already spent almost a million dollar

Debbie Johnston, recognized as Entrepreneur of Richmond and the founder of Care Advantage – a dynamic and compassionate care company that is devoted in giving back to the community. She’s the author of The School of Heart Knocks. Listen as Debbie shares her inspiration in starting Care Advantage and her experience in Secret Millionaire.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Think and Grow Rich

What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

Favorite online tool? — Facebook

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Never

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Start your business earlier, you know more than you think.”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:54 – Nathan introduces Debbie to the show

03:10 – Adoption is close to Debbie’s heart

03:28 – Care Advantage is a full service care company

03:54 – Care Advantage has a special care division

04:30 – Care Advantage is all over the country

04:50 – Payment for the services is by the hour

05:12 – Care Advantage reimbursed in the state they’re in

05:44 – Care Advantage doesn’t do a lot of Obamacare

06:40 – Debbie started years ago

06:47 – Debbie was running out-patients in a hospital

07:34 – Debbie first used Care Advantage to his brother-in-law and parents

Matt Kepnes of NomadicMatt.com, the man who went from everyday worker to travel writer. Matt grew up in Boston and he didn’t take his first trip until he was 23—a cruise to Montreal. After he started a life as a young professional, he decided to travel the world, so he headed to Costa Rica in 2004, Taiwan in 2005, and never looked back. Listen as Matt talks about the success of his blog and how he grew it from a simple online journal.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Influence

What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? — N/A

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Value eating healthy”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Matt to the show

02:53 – Matt was working in administration

03:16 – Number of unique website users on average per month is 1.2 million

03:27 – Matt started the blog in 2008 after 14 months of traveling

03:50 – Matt built the blog as an online resume

04:17 – Matt is getting more visitors in 2010

04:29 – Matt wanted to write guidebooks so he made his blog a guidebook

04:56 – 2/3 of Matt’s income comes from affiliates

05:30 – Matt’s book is The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking

05:40 – Matt self-published the book

05:46 – Matt’s book with a publisher is How to Travel the World on $ 50 a Day

05:53 – Matt is only getting royalties from the book

06:18 – Matt met the publisher in 2012

06:40 – How Matt negotiated with the publisher

07:51 – Sold around 50,000 to 60,000 copies

08:30 – Royalty percentage per book

09:50 – Matt shifted the blog from an online journal to a website generating money

10:44 – The affiliate offer page in the website are in the home page

11:35 – Average percentage people spend on travel insurance

12:10 – Matt sells 400-500 plan policies per month

12:45 – Other affiliates of Matt

13:21 – Matt is already with the affiliate for years

14:18 – Matt spent some of his time guest blogging

14:38 – Matt does 2-3 guest blogs per month

15:03 – Matt is always traveling

15:11 – Matt’s email list size

15:54 – Matt has a team in different places

17:00 – Connect with Matt through his website, Twitter and Instagram

19:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Travel not only de-stresses you, it opens your eyes to global opportunities.

Having affiliates is a good way to increase revenue.

Eat healthy. You are what you eat.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Chris Bruznicki, CEO of Vaystays, which is a vacation rental marketplace tool used by propriety manager like Wyndam. He has been featured in Entrepreneur and was awarded the bronze star. Listen as Chris tells us how Vaystays is earning and what made him decide to raise capital.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great

What CEO do you follow? – Steve Jobs

Favorite online tool? — DocuSign

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Networking is super important and consider raising capital”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Chris to the show

02:20 – Vaystays is used by professionals managing a vacation companies

02:27 – People who have houses in Tahoe and the like will have the vacation companies manage their properties

03:44 – Vaystays gives them a marketplace for distribution

03:55 – Vaystays provides open cable like service

04:17 – Team size and location

04:26 – Vaystays is making 5 million transactions and Chris is earning 13% of every transaction

04:51 – Vaystays was founded in 2010

06:10 – Average order value is $ 2000

07:10 – Vaystays’ software automates all the check in procedure

08:15 – Vaystays takes percentage both from the traveler and seller

09:15 – Vaystays is transparent in their website about the pricing

09:30 – Pricing varies depending on the season

10:30 – Vaystays is connecting specific needs to specific supplies

10:40 – Total transaction volume

11:55 – Vaystays business model

12:20 – Vaystays is in the process of creating subscription fees

13:50 – The marketplace still has lifetime value

15:09 – Vaystays currently has 2000 propriety management companies

15:15 – Average is 10 units per company

16:10 - 25,000 stayed in their properties in September

16:30 – Now is a slow period for Vaystays

18:03 – 312 bookings in September

18:48 – Vaystays has been self-funded for a long time

19:05 – Did a price round for fundraising

19:33 – $ 650,000 revenue in the last 12 months

19:47 – Valuation

20:56 – Chris has 2 co-founders

22:30 – Chris and his co-founders thought about a high valuation

22:53 – They came up with something between $ 3-6 million

24:24 – Connect with Chris through his LinkedIn and his email

16:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Look for quality partners who can support you.

Networking is important – it can lead to tons of opportunities.

Consider raising capital if you see a reason to do so.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+

Patrick Ambron, co-founder and CEO of BrandYourself.com, which helps people look better online. He’s an instructor at General Assembly and was included INC’s 30 under 30 list. Listen as Patrick talks about his experience on SharkTank and how it boosted his company’s revenue.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Made to Stick

What CEO do you follow? – Reed Hastings

Favorite online tool? — X.AI

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish that when I was building my business, I knew how important it was to have people who don’t have your strengths”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Patrick to the show

02:00 – Patrick got a $ 2 million deal on SharkTank but didn’t take it

02:11 – Patrick didn’t take the deal because they wanted 25%

02:30 – Patrick’s episode was aired 2 years ago and it was a good exposure

02:40 – Patrick did over $ 1 million in revenue while they were on SharkTank

Renee Zau, co-founder and CEO of DonationMatch, a product donation network for school and charity events that works similarly to match.com. She’s obsessed with increasing a win-win partnership between brands and non-profit that don’t cost money but can generate more for everyone involved.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – E-myth Revisited

What CEO do you follow? – Craig Newmark

Favorite online tool? — Streak and Asana

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Almost

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Believe in yourself and talent even if it is different from someone else’s’ idea on what you should do”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:40 – Nathan introduces Renee to the show

02:08 – It takes 300 hours to secure in-kind and other donations from a benefit event

02:31 – DonationMatch streamlines the product for companies and reduces the work for school and charities

02:50 – Sahara Sam’s receives 100s to 1000s requests of tickets a year to raffle off at charity events

03:26 – Doing a research and checking legitimacy takes time for companies

Ash Kumra, an award-winning entrepreneur, author, public speaker, and talk show host recognized twice by the White House as an entrepreneur making an impact. Listen as Ash shares how he runs Youngry, a media company he co-founded that informs, inspires, and elevates young and hungry minded entrepreneurs to thrive.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Inside Steve’s Brain

What CEO do you follow? – Mark Benioff

Favorite online tool? — Lead.com

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “To not be worried about other people’s things”

Karan Chaudhry, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder and CPO of Comnplus, a company building advanced machine learning based personalization and recommendation engine focused on online digital content industry. He received his MS from Stanford University and is an active mentor and advisor at StartX, advising entrepreneurs on topics like fundraising, team building, data product management and product marketing. Prior to Comnplus, Karan was the co-founder and CEO of DropThought, a machine learning based instant feedback and text platform for voice over applications. Listen as Karan explains how DropThought was acquired last year and how he started Comnplus.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Steve Jobs

What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Asana

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No

If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “Take risk. Failures are highly over-rated. It just makes us stronger”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:44 – Nathan introduces Karan to the show

02:35 – DropThought was acquired last year

02:43 – DropThought is doing feedback-based analytics

02:58 – Karan raised a couple of rounds for DropThought

03:10 – DropThought was acquired by Bahwan CyberTek

03:22 – Karan was in the process of fundraising for DropThought when Bahwan CyberTek approached him

03:50 – There were other companies who want to acquire DropThought

04:33 – Valuation of DropThought

05:24 – Team size for DropThought is 15-20

05:35 – Comnplus is taking the machine analytic context to the content industry

05:50 – Companies find it difficult to recommend similar content to their customers

06:30 – Comnplus is only 3-4 months old

06:42 – TVF funded Karan $ 500,000 to start Comnplus

07:09 – Comnplus is creating clusters of users with similar habits for TVF

07:28 – Comnplus handles marketing and contact targeted users

07:48 – Comnplus reaches out to users with customize recommendations

08:35 – Comnplus market is the large content providers

08:58 – Comnplus price point

09:15 – Comnplus is currently bootstrapped

09:50 – Comnplus has a small but qualified team

10:35 – Karan is willing to spend 50-70% of revenue for customer acquisition

11:35 – Target RPU is $ 500,000

12:15 – Comnplus is currently not fundraising and TVF as their only client

12:43 – Biggest competitors are Rich Relevance and Gravity R&D

13:48 – Get in touch with Karan through his email

15:28 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Find the right people and they will acquire your business.

It’s about quality and not quantity.

You can never “lose”.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.

Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.

Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+